Kakao Mobility Takes Steps to Revitalize the On-Foot Delivery Market

Business Agreement Signed with 4 Shipping Agencies
Meeting Local Delivery Demand Within 3km Radius

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Kakao Mobility announced on the 30th that it has signed a "Delivery Agency Business Agreement for the Joint Development of the Last-Mile Industry" with four companies: Mannaplus, Superhero, Dillion Group, and Dilber. The purpose is to establish a win-win model with the industry through Kakao T Foot Delivery order linkage and to explore ways to revitalize the market.

Kakao T Foot Delivery is a B2B (business-to-business) based service that delivers easily deliverable items such as convenience store goods, cosmetics, and bakery products within a short distance of 1.5 km. It is a reasonably priced short-distance delivery service for small business owners, mainly franchise store owners.

Recently, small business owners have been struggling to use B2B delivery services due to soaring delivery fees. In response, Kakao Mobility plans to reduce the burden on small business owners by providing reasonably priced foot delivery partnership services through win-win cooperation agreements with delivery agencies, and improve the business environment by increasing delivery success rates through expanded driver connections.

Through this partnership, Kakao Mobility will provide partners with an open API to develop and operate a shared platform that connects orders generated from Kakao T Foot Delivery. Support will also be provided so that each delivery agency can focus solely on delivery service quality management, such as safe order execution and supplier education management.

The open API-based shared platform is one of the main models of the Platform as a Service (PaaS) that Kakao Mobility has independently developed and provided to partners. This shared platform partnership is expected not only to reduce the burden on small business owners, who are the actual service users, but also to improve convenience for various stakeholders such as partner companies and their affiliated drivers.

Partner companies will be able to autonomously carry out orders provided through the shared platform. This enables additional revenue generation and reduces costs incurred during operations such as self-managed shipper sales and individual shipper customer service responses.

An increase in delivery drivers' income is also expected. Drivers, who have been struggling due to the continuous decline in delivery demand after the endemic, will be able to handle off-peak time orders such as convenience store, cosmetics, and bakery deliveries during their idle hours, which is anticipated to have a positive effect on the overall related industry.

Meanwhile, orders provided to delivery agencies through Kakao Mobility's shared platform involve transportation within 3 km. Kakao Mobility expects this to meet the demand for short-distance delivery, which has been difficult to use between the shortest distance foot delivery within 1.5 km and the long-distance quick service of 13 to 15 km.

Kim Taehyun, Head of the Agent Business Division at Kakao Mobility, said, "Starting with this agreement, we will firmly establish an ecosystem for co-growth with the last-mile delivery industry," and added, "We will continue to expand 'PaaS-type technology provision cases' based on Kakao Mobility's advanced ICT technology and service operation know-how."